


Careless Gods

by Goethicite



Category: Bourne Legacy (2012)
Genre: Gen, Learning to be Aaron, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Unrequited Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goethicite/pseuds/Goethicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron Cross from a thousand feet up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Careless Gods

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another short. Eventually I'm going to need help expanding these. *headdesk*. A salute to missmishka who made me actually like Byer enough this short made it past one paragraph.

That wallet is Aaron's favorite part of Kenneth. The gnawing, never-ending need to please, to give, is the part he can't shake. The desire to be loved is as much a part of him as breathing. By the time Kenneth gets to the state home, the desire for love is replaced for the desire for anything other than cool disdain or anger. He makes the other boys laugh and tries his hardest to be smarter for the social workers. While the other children play, Kenneth sits on the stairs repeating, "See Spot run. Run, Spot run." He is thirteen and thinks that if he could just learn to read, someone would want him.

What he learns is, no one wants defective goods. His social worker is kind enough not to say it aloud. He learns that people are kind when you give them what they want. So he loves desperately and gives anything for the few scraps of affection his caretakers can be bothered to toss his way. He joins the army, because there is no where else to go. Not when he can't even manage trade school.

Even after the chems, Aaron finds it nearly impossible to be angry, to hate. Hot fury rises in his throat, spills out over his lips in a few sharp seconds, and disappears like the rain into the soil. He forgives the trainers who break his body and push his mind to the edge, leaning into their touches as they tidy up the wounds. They tell him he smiles too much. That's how Byer notices him, smiling at trainer as the man screams in his face.

Byer isn't cruel. Aaron knows Byer wants something, unsure if it's his body or his obedience or both. He can't stop himself from giving the man what he wants. Because when you give Eric Byer what he wants, and do it well, he says "Thank you," and "Nice job." Byer touches Aaron's shoulder sometimes. If Aaron has to do something really distasteful, Byer might even squeeze before pulling away. The part of Aaron that can't shake Kenneth needs these moments as much as Aaron needs the chems. Byer takes a personal interest, teaching Aaron about facial expressions and body language. He gives Aaron books to read to supplement the huge gaps an overcrowded public school system left. Aaron devours them and comes back with nervous questions. If he has time, Byer gives Aaron the answer himself. More often, he gives Aaron more books. Aaron pretends not to see Byer looking longer and harder at him each time he leaves the office with another armful of hard-covered material to study.

Aaron is one of a kind, that's what they tell him. Usually the test subjects for this kind of thing are at least average. Aaron Cross off the chems is just functional. (He tells Marta IQ, because he doesn't want to talk about AFQT. The minimum score at the time was a 31. Kenneth made a 9 with a GED by the skin of his teeth. Between the twelve points he fudged, the GED, and the fact Kenneth couldn't miss with a rifle, the recruiter got him special dispensation.) Aaron Cross on the chems is unstoppable. The scientists come around often, poking and prodding like the social workers and state psychologists from before. They look right through Aaron just like they did Kenneth to get what they want from underneath his skin. It's a relief when Byer takes Aaron away from them and their over curious gazes and puts him in the field.

Being perfect on point is easy for Aaron. Byer tells him he's good, follows orders to the letter, never complains, always smiles. When the fever hits, it seems like the man is there whenever Aaron opens his eyes, dazed and unsure. There are other scientist in and out of the room constantly, more than Aaron has seen since the beginning, but Byer stays with his laptop, phone, and stack of papers. It's the only reason Aaron knows he's in a bad way. The drugs they gave him leave him floating in his own head. His dreams turn dark and ugly. When he wakes up, he cries like he's Kenneth again. Byer is always there for that with a gentle, if not kind, word to settle him. Aaron knows he would have died in the white room on a hard mattress without Byer's hand pressed against his back until the fever broke. It's enough to turn the need to please into abiding love for the man for eight months.

Until Laos. Aaron's killed before, but not like this. Not women and children and old men and boys with blank eyes. He's a soldier, not a murderer. Byer calls him a sin-eater, and he can taste the slick bile of the death he caused on the back of his tongue. After Laos, the part of Aaron Cross that will always be Kenneth J. Kitsom doesn't love Eric Byer anymore.

Byer asks him why he doesn't smile. Aaron just shrugs as says, "I smile too much." He's not the only Outcome agent to get personal attention from the head the program, but Byer still spends more with him than any of the others, even now. Aaron hears the trainers whispering about it over their coffee. It seems like the more Aaron pushes, the samples he doesn’t bother with, the missed check ins, the more time Byer spends with him. Like Aaron is a misbehaving child trying to get attention. The very people that ended Kenneth's existence seem to have forgotten they made a different man. The child-like soldier who was easily placated by a kind word and gentle pat is essentially gone. Only a few of his bad habits are left in Aaron.

After he goes off the grid, Aaron never has a chance to see Byer. He's loaded on a plane to Alaska so quickly he still stinks of sweat and cordite on the flight. It couldn't have been clearer if Byer was there to tell him Aaron was being sent to time out.

The missile up the ass is, to say the least, an unexpected, unpleasant surprise.


End file.
